I would love to hear Romneys answer to "President Obama has signed an agreement President Karzai for a withdraw timetable of US troops from Afghanistan effectively ending the war, if you become President will you honor that timetable?"

The US has a massive number of troops throughout the country. It has active bases. It patrols the country to the best of its ability, performing raids. There aren't WW2-style battles but that's because it's a guerrilla war.

Never assume LARGER levels of conventional war cannot happen, though WWI-style Total War is successfully deterred by nuclear weapons.

Iraq and Afghanistan are minor compared to the Viet Nam war, but since the US, China, and Russia have Muslim cultural enemies in common and strong economic reasons not to fuck with each other we can expect peace between us for quite a while.

More deliberate cooperation between EUSian, Russian, and Chinese elites should be encouraged with the tacit understanding that Islam is a global threat to their societies. Since Islamist countries want weapons and trade, "competing" relationships could be exploited to foster war between Muslims and keep them amused fighting each other (and selling sweet oil to pay for it).

Slightly off topic, but I expect the next huge war to be due to the US's relative economic decline in the international market due to China, India, Russia, etc. growing their economies and either the US feeling threatened or another country asserting itself against the US's wishes.

though WWI-style Total War is successfully deterred by nuclear weapons.

There aren't any realistic enemies between: only capable of gorilla warfare and nuclear armed.

I could reasonably foresee a scenario where major powers went to war over neutral territory, with the tacit understanding that any violation of either countries homeland will unleash the nukes.

Imagining how such a scenario might unfold is a bit trickier.

Possibly China forcefully trying to retake Taiwan? I could foresee American air and naval forces helping to repel the invasion, without China unleashing a nuclear strike on the US mainland. However if the joint US/Taiwanese forces attempted a counter-offensive into mainland China, all bets would probably be off.

A couple of problems with that scenario:1) In addition to nuclear MAD, the US and China have very strong economic ties. Contrary to popular opinion China is more vulnerable on this angle than the US. Trade could perhaps surive a proxy war, but not a direct war even the kind of limited one you posit.

2) China cares a lot about losing face. Take a look at the Korean war. China's actions made no sense at all outside of the notion of face. The armistice plausibly allowed both China and the US to claim victory, a repelled invasion of Taiwan is unlikely to offer such a chance.

3) China could only hope to succeeded by destroying one or more US aircraft carriers using ground to ship missiles, and the loss of lives that would entail would force the US to respond on the mainland.

Yeah. At least for the US, there's no way to have a "gentleman's agreement" about such a conflict. This isn't the 19th century--heads of state can't meet up at a fox hunt one day and decide to play Risk with their citizens.

If a US President tried such a thing, there are two plausible outcomes:

a) They win after incredible loss of life, at which point China likely retaliates with nuclear weapons.b) They lose/sue for peace after incredible loss of life, lose the next election, and their replacement likely retaliates with nuclear weapons.

Silly Faramir. You just don't understand how unsafe you are. Check under your bed for muslim terrorists at night. If you're like every other American in the country there will be at least ten of them lurking there waiting to force feed you couscous and suffocate you with the rich odors of goat cheese and poppies.

On topic: does anyone really think that Afghanistan will be a stable country without a 3rd party basically running the place in our lifetimes? It just seems too remote, too rugged, too big and too diverse to ever come together. If they split it into a bunch of small nations that could ignore each other, I could see that leading to some stability for some of them at least.

On topic: does anyone really think that Afghanistan will be a stable country without a 3rd party basically running the place in our lifetimes? It just seems too remote, too rugged, too big and too diverse to ever come together. If they split it into a bunch of small nations that could ignore each other, I could see that leading to some stability for some of them at least.

No. Their leadership is corrupt. And it's not like further military action reduces corruption. But the USA is the world police, and "can't leave until it's fixed, etc etc no matter how much it messes up America itself!"

We can do what the Russians did. We've already dumped the South Vietnamese government when they proved worthless, and some of their troops actually put up a decent fight when the NVA came down to finish them off. No problem and the US and Nam get along fine now.

Their being no good Muslims, the Afghan government won't be mourned. (We should block immigration and declare any Afghan outcome "self determination" and a success. Cease US aid and it is to be hoped the place collapses back to its former state. Even if Al Qaeda came back it can be contained.

e should be arming India against the Pakiban instead of trying to buy cooperation from our Islamist enemies who only want weapons from the US to stay in power.

America's top military officer has condemned a course taught at a US military college that advocated a "total war" against Muslims.

Quote:

"We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'," Lt Col Dooley said in the presentation last July.

"It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction."

He added that international laws protecting civilians in armed conflicts - such as the Geneva Conventions were "no longer relevant".

That left open the option, the instructor continued, of applying "the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki" to Islam's holiest cities, and bringing about "Mecca and Medina destruction".

They have the actual presentation linked. I agree with the commentator in the article that the more amazing part is hundreds of highly trained military officers went through the course before someone objected.

I was so hoping that was an academy instructor teaching cadets who get their attitudes fixed real quick when they arrive at their units... but sadly, that is a high level, and yes, more officers should have stepped up far sooner.

What an epic dumbshit. He should never have put that to paper or slideshow.

It's not useful to the war effort, though percolation of such awareness (served in a more nuanced manner) on the down low is reasonable.

Part of diplomacy (a lost art) is developing smooth hypocrisy to facilitate social interaction. In order to divide your enemies you must cultivate some of them. We need Muslim schism, not Muslim unity. It's not economical for us to fight them. It's wise for us to help them kill each other to debilitate the mass.

.mil folks love planning, preparing, training and equipping for as many options as possible on my dime.

I'd rather use the money for almost anything. Even rural broadband, which is right up there with setting it on fire as far as I'm concerned.

I'll be sure to tell that to the planning guys downstairs. You know, the ones doing risk assessment matrixes for New York Harbor. Hurricane plans, terrorism plans (gee, those don't hit New York at ALL), earthquake plans, etc.

And there is a difference between disaster preparedness, and planning to fight up to three conflicts at once, and not knowing where, so needing to buy hardware to fight three wars anywhere at the same time. A big ass boondoggle.

Sorry .milfox it just doesn't make sense to have a regulatory / crime fighting / safety agency in the department formerly know as war.

The Coast Guard has never been under the Department of Defense (or any of its predecessor departments). It's already under DHS and, before that, the Department of Transportation (and, previous to that, Treasury).

It is considered one of the four "Armed Forces," but does not in any way fall under the DoD chain of command except when certain assets are lent from the Coast Guard to the Navy for military operations (e.g., Coast Guard cutters assigned to overseas antipiracy efforts).

Edit: It may also interest you to know that there are two other uniformed services beyond the Coast Guard which don't fall under DoD, but are not considered part of the "armed forces." They are the NOAA Commissioned Corps (Dept. of Commerce) and the US Public Health Service Corps (Dept. of Health & Human Services).